DESN1101 Lecture 2: DESN 1101 TYPOGRAPHY - LECTURE NOTES 2 - TYPE HISTORY
28 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
DESN 1101 TYPOGRAPHY
Semester 1 2018
LECTURE NOTES: TYPE HISTORY
• Language and art in humanity’s history and links to typography
o Language defines the condition of humanity
o Only humans are able to write and draw which makes them able to create
written, not just verbal, records
o Typography is able to fuse both together
▪ Typography is said to be central to human evolution
▪ The writing systems, dating from the first ones seen 3000 B.C.,
show the spread of written records, showing the spread of
knowledge and international relations
• Earliest writing systems
o Cuneiform 3500-3000 B.C.
▪ Sumer, Mesopotamia
▪ Cuneiform writing – written using reed in clay tablets
o Phoenician 900 B.C.
▪ Greece
▪ Spread across the Mediterranean by merchants
▪ Phonetics – Phoenician breakthrough
• Phonetics associated symbols and sounds
• It was the first connection of written and spoken language
o Roman 1400 A.D.
▪ Greeks and Romans developed an alphabet
• This alphabet didn’t have the letters J, U, W
▪ Written on Trajan columns
• The basis of the current font “Trajan”
o Clay stones developed to parchment to paper
▪ Paper was brought about by better technologies: a better mill
created better paper for better writing
• Johannes Gutenberg
o 1455
o Inventor of moveable type
o Breakthrough creation of the moveable type press
▪ For the first time in history, people could create multiple copies of
text from a single source
▪ Altered the structure of society
▪ Before, transcribing was a hard process
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